


Beau Week 2019

by DarkHorseAsh



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Cute, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 14:38:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18573529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkHorseAsh/pseuds/DarkHorseAsh
Summary: Beau Week Day 1: Beau finds an injured puppy.  It reminds her.





	Beau Week 2019

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is late. I meant to put it up last night but that didn't happen so here it is about 11 hours and 37 minutes late.

It’s a pretty normal day.  They’ve been walking for what is starting to feel like  _ forever,  _ though Beau knows that if she asked Caleb he could tell her how long it had been down to the second.  She won’t ask, mostly because she doesn’t care but also because Caleb hasn’t spoken since he’d woken up a few feet from her far before dawn.  She had seen him shaking, soft tremors wracking his whole frame, so she had just moved to put a hand on his shoulder and let him grieve in peace.  

 

Now, she was jerked out of her memories by Fjord’s call that they should settle down and let the horses rest for a bit.  Jester whooped in delight at the idea of getting to not walk, linking her arm with Molly’s and skipping ahead. Yasha lagged a few steps behind the duo, always within reach but never quite with them.  Beau honestly thought it was a pretty apt metaphor for all of Yasha's life with the Mighty Nine, but she wouldn’t say that, either. She knew she was seen as  _ rude harsh impolite cruel  _ by most people she met.  She even knew she deserved it, knew how to bend insults around her tongue and spit them back, how to use them to build walls that no one else’s words knew how to get through.  

 

She trotted off to get firewood at Fjord’s command.  This “break” was sure sounding like an all-night break, but she wasn’t going to complain; an ankle she had tweaked in the last fight still throbbed when she went for more than an hour or so on it.  As she walked, she was barely paying attention to where each foot went, years of experience moving through the wilderness allowing her to do it really without thinking. She gathered branches as she went, keeping an eye out for rabbits or other animals that she could potentially catch for dinner.  

 

It was as she listened for movement that she heard it.  The sound was tiny, like a whimpering noise, and for a moment she thought she had imagined it.  But then she was moving and the noise sounded again, and she crouched down to look under an old log.  In the narrow space, which was really only a few inches high, she saw what looked like a bundle of fur.  She reached in, ignoring the louder whimper, and gently pulled it out into her lap. For a broken moment she thought it was dead, and then it  _ moved.   _

 

It was a puppy, with ears that flopped over and light grey fur and a long nose.  It was  _ adorable,  _ and Beau felt her armor fracture for a moment before running a hand over the tiny puppy’s back.  “Shh, you’re alright.” She soothed. The puppy seemed unharmed as she ran hands over its tiny form, but it was shivering and whimpering plaintively.  And then she reached it’s back end and noticed the issue; the pup’s right back leg ended just above the tiny knee. The stump looked  _ bad,  _ red and oozing, and so she moved as quickly as she could.  

 

The puppy never snapped, even as she was  _ pretty sure  _ he had cause to as she cleaned the wound and bandaged it.  The creature was limp in her hands by the end of it, shivering and whining.  She wrapped the tiny dog up in a blanket and hesitated. She thought back, to when she had found a kitten when she was ten.  She’d hidden it in a box under her bed for two weeks until her mother found it when cleaning. Her father had...well, Beau really didn’t want to remember  _ those  _ weeks, until the kitten’s screams had died down in her mind and the bruises on her own flesh had faded.

 

She hid him.  She tucked the puppy into her bag, making sure to keep him bundled up safely.  “You’ve gotta be quiet, pup.” She murmurs, grabbing a full double armful of wood so that she’d have an excuse for taking so long and taking off in the direction of the camp.  Surprisingly, no one asked what had taken so long, so she  _ carefully  _ dumped a pile of wood near the fire and flopped down inside the cart.  She ate most of the soup that Caduceus made, quietly slipping the rest of the bowl under her leg as the team settled down to sleep.  “I’ve got the watch. I’ll wake someone up when it’s their turn.” 

 

The puppy is frighteningly quiet.  It laps weakly at the broth she had left and finishes it off, but she has no idea if that’s even something she can or should be feeding the baby dog in her lap.  It chewed on her fingers as she re-bandaged the leg. Beau wasn’t entirely sure  _ what  _ to do with a puppy, but she knew that she wanted to keep it and that terrified her.  Nothing that she  _ wanted  _ to have ever went well.  The puppy whined, nuzzling at her fingers.  She coaxed a little more water into it before getting the puppy back in the bag and closing her eyes.

 

Two days had passed since Beau found him.  She’d named the puppy, in the quiet moments of the morning when  _ puppy  _ didn’t feel like enough of a thing to call him.  His name was Sylas, after a dog that Beau had known when she was little, and he seemed to like it.  The little gray puppy was doing better, his leg was looking better and he was greedily eating all the soaked and mushed pocket bacon that Beau made him.  Everything was working. Everything was  _ fine.   _ They were fine.  Beau could handle a puppy, she could hide him until they reached Zadash and then they could figure something else out.  

 

Naturally, as everything else in Beau’s life went, it didn’t  _ work.   _ They had settled down for the night and she had gently set her bag down, Sylas still wrapped in a blanket, before going to try and find some food.  She’d returned at Jester’s shout, expecting to see someone being attacked or hurt or  _ dead.  _  What she saw was far worse.  Jester was holding Sylas up, and Beau  couldn’t stop the terrified, quickening heartbeat in her chest from driving her forward.  “Beau? Why is there a puppy in your bag?” Fjord’s voice was confusion tinted with anger and she ran.

 

Molly had been paying  _ no  _ attention until he heard Jester’s squeal.  Now he moved, peaking out from the cart and seeing Jester holding something small and gray and furry, with Beau’s bag discarded at her feet.  Beau had reached the clearing and now bolted for Jester, snatching whatever it was even as Fjord had moved to try and intercept her. Then Jester was speaking and Beau froze.  “Crap, crap, crap.” Molly growled, vaulting out of the cart and rushing forward to nudge Jester back and bodyblock Fjord from approaching. “Stop it. Fjord, I don’t know what’s going on or why you sound so mad, but  _ look at Beau.”   _

 

Beau’s eyes were blank fear and she was cradling the puppy to her chest with one arm even as her other clung to her quarterstaff and she growled “No you can’t take him you can’t hurt him I won’t let you.”  Fjord blinked in confusion and Molly gave a slight shake of his head, desperately trying to keep the half orc back, but he was completely ignored. “Dude, what the hell is going on what IS that?” Fjord approached and Molly cursed under his breath because he  _ knew  _ where this was going.  The half-orc reached out, and that was when Beau jammed her elbow into his neck.  It was frantic and desperate and really didn’t hit hard and that was when fjord grabbed the dog, took a step back, and held it up.

 

She couldn’t breath.  It was too painfully familiar, the small, frail animal held in the air, neck just  _ ready  _ to be snapped, the harsh eyes bearing down on her, the angry confusion in his voice.  “Please.” She didn’t beg. She was Beauregard and she didn’t beg except she was, fingers reaching up shakily even as she knew it was pointless.  “Please don’t hurt him I’m sorry I hid him please don’t hurt him.” 

 

Caleb reached Molly’s side, eyes wide.  “What?” he questioned in confusion. “Beau has a dog.  Fjord got annoyed she hid it. She’s..flashbacks, I think?  I’m going for Fjord, Nott you need to get Jester away from her before she gets hit.  Caleb,  _ please  _ get Beau out of here.”  They moved without questioning it, for once, and Molly reaches Fjord with ease.  He snatches the dog out of Fjord’s raised hands and shoves the half-orc back. “We are taking a walk and you are coming.”  Molly growls, hand clamped around Fjord’s risk. On the other side of the clearing, he can vaguely hear Nott talking rapidly to Jester.  

 

Caleb is crouched in front of Beau, to one side so that she has a way  _ out.   _ “Beauregard, no one is going to hurt you.  Or the puppy.” he murmurs. “Molly has him.  I do not know where you are or who you think is going to do it but no one is going to hurt him or you as long as we are here.  You are safe.” Beau shook, leaning her head forward into his side. Caleb stiffened, slipping sideways to wrap his arm around her shoulders and ignoring the flare of discomfort in the back of his mind at the contact.  “Breath, Beau. I promise, no one is going near him. I’ll beat Fjord’s ass if he tries.” She gives a slight, tired smile, shivering in his grip. “I am. Sorry.” Her voice was low and hesitant. “I can go. I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t go.”  he doesn’t mean to say it but his lips move before he has time to think.  “We don’t want you to go. No one here does. We’re just worried about you, ok?  I...I’ve had flashbacks. You know that. You’ve helped me through Several. But I’ve never seen  _ you  _ have this issue and that scares us.”  Beau gave a tired snort, hand rubbing slowly over her leg.  “My father once found an injured cat I was nursing back to health and he broke it’s neck in front of me and then beat me till I had a broken leg, too.”  Her voice is blank, but Caleb’s arm tightens fractionally and then she’s crying, silent and afraid. “I didn’t, I thought he was going to do it again and I know it’s  _ Fjord  _ and he would never do that but I saw him holding Sylas like that and I just…”  

 

“I know.”  Because he does.  Caleb knows  _ fear.   _ He knows irrational fear, too, like when he sees fire burning and wonders if it’s his family even when he knows his aim was true.  “I know. Are you...ok?” Beau nods, still leaning into his side even as he can see the embarrassment flicker over her face. “Yeah.  Thanks, man.” She casts a wary eye around the campfire, and he can  _ see  _ her searching. “Molly’s got him.  Let me go grab him?” She nods and he stands, somewhat surprised at the way his brain seems to long for the contact to return as he jogs slowly across their clearing.  

 

Fjord looks furious.  Molly is blocking him from Beau’s view, and for that Caleb is appreciative, but he’s also keeping...Sylas, she’d said?  Tucked into the crook of his arm. “Fjord, back the hell off. You’re terrifying her.” “I don’t give a  **damn,** she’s hiding shit!”  Fjord snaps. Caleb shoves his way between them, eyes suddenly furious.  “You need to sit down and be quiet. You do not know everything. I don’t care what you think you know, you do not know everything.  She had a reason. She is afraid. You are going to shut the hell up and you are going to stay away from her until you can be a civil person.”  He grabs Sylas, smiling slightly as the little gray puppy yawns and shifts in his hands. “C’mon buddy, let’s get you back to your Beau.” 

 

Beau doesn’t look up till he sets the puppy in her lap, but as soon as he does he can see the worst of the anger and fear bleed out.  “He just doesn’t understand. Molly will make him listen.” Beau hums, rubbing her fingers over the grey fur. “I’m sorry.” Caleb leans into her side and rests his head on her shoulder, his own hand joining Beau’s on the puppy as they watch the sun set and Fjord and Molly bicker.  


End file.
